


Tense and Release

by aquilasaurus



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, F/F, Gem Sex, Grief/Mourning, Masturbation, Porn with Feelings, Psychological Trauma, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 23:34:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28697043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aquilasaurus/pseuds/aquilasaurus
Summary: Subheader: a love letter to poor tortured Pearl written all in one go.After the events of Sworn to the Sword (2x09), Pearl gets some tough love and realizes she has to do better. Then she goes back to her room and masturbates with Holo-Rose, again.
Relationships: Pearl/Holo-Rose, Pearl/Rose Quartz (Steven Universe)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 7





	Tense and Release

My words echoed through the silent sky arena. As soon as they were out of my mouth, I knew what I'd done. I gasped, my cheeks wet, and fumbled my way through a few more words.

I had put Connie in harm’s way. Perhaps not imminent danger, like the time I'd nearly gotten Steven killed, but I’d been training her like I’d trained myself, beating down her self-worth just the way mine had been – oh, but I couldn’t let myself think about that again. I needed to walk away, to breathe for a minute. And then my job was to prevent myself from dissolving into a lump of self-pity until we all got home. To take care of them first.

Pause. They were sitting next to me, explaining themselves to me. Connie asked how Rose had made me feel about myself, and I – she was clever, that girl. _Pull yourself together, Pearl. Soften your eyes. They need you._

“I see now how deeply you care about each other.” _Breathe in, smile_. “That will make you both great knights!”

I could do this. We hugged, we laughed, we warped home. It’s going to be fun, I said.

As Connie’s father drove her away and Steven started banging around in the kitchen cabinets, hunting for sustenance, I felt the weight in my chest sinking deeper, heavier, in the knowledge that I only had to keep this up for a few more minutes. The temple door opened and Garnet stepped out. Glancing from Steven’s face to mine, she surmised that the worst has not happened. She lowered her voice so that he would not overhear, telling me that she knows it’s hard for me, but that people are getting hurt by my pain. I knew she was right. For the first time I began to wonder if perhaps Rose, who had saved me and loved me and earned my unquestioning loyalty, might have done things to hurt me, too. I latched onto Garnet’s elbow as she looked down at me and nodded. I would have to sort through this, and soon.

But first, Steven.

“Steven, I’m sorry for what I did, to you and to Connie. It was far too much pressure.” See, I could recognize my own patterns. Eventually. I almost added, “And I know you aren’t Rose,” but something stopped me. I stood at the counter while he ate his sandwich. He reassured me, mouth full, that Connie would bounce back to herself. He said he understood.

He did not understand. But I arranged my face into a smile anyway. _He really does have his mother’s heart, open and easy._

 _Well_ , I thought, as tears pricked at my eyes, _there it is._ Time to go. I glided through my door without looking back.

—

When the door pinged shut, I stepped onto the surface of my fountain. I could feel the current pulling gently toward the center. Not strong enough to carry much along with it, but the sensation was pleasant on my feet. Gingerly I came to sit on my heels and folded my torso forward until my gem brushed the water’s surface. It felt good, like an intimate massage, but it made my chest tighten with tears. I wanted to plunge my whole body into the pool, anything to crawl away from myself. _I’ll need to distract myself from all the feelings of the day_. I felt the familiar ache of tension in my body, and against my better judgment, I knew I wouldn't be able to help myself tonight.

I needed to be overpowered one more time by that sweet, sharp grief: to lose myself in my favorite hologram.

I pulled my fountain’s waters up into a gentle rolling bed — Rose’s bed. A copy of it, anyway. And there she was. _Rose_. Not pink, but close enough to turn the heaviness in my stomach to jelly. The way she used to look at me, her eyes heavy with desire, after she’d learned about human sex but when she still loved me the most. When I was her loyal bodyguard and she cherished me in return. I needed to feel it again: the way she used to hold me, wrap me up in her endless body. The way she tugged on me, stretched my limbs and then pulled me close, swaddled my arching back. The sighs that escaped my lips, how every muscle in my body would pull taut, straining after that elusive pleasure. 

And so I asked my hologram to make love to me. Her _Yes_ made me cringe — nothing about it was natural. The real Rose had always initiated, was always eager to touch me as humans did. I had been the one to give myself over to her, to allow her that physical access, to feel in my body a pleasure I hadn’t known a conscious projection of light to be capable of. It was like fusion for the heart, and I still craved it. Time to shut down the ruminations and just feel. 

We started with a kind of dance at the edge the bed. I ran my hands down my body, swaying and shimmying as she watched. She twirled the way Rose used to and gathered me into her arms, pressing me to her body. She lifted me into the air, and I automatically parted my legs for her, twisting myself around her as she brought me down into her lap. Slowly, as I had so many times before, I opened myself to her. I let my head fall back, gripped her tightly, and began to rock my body against hers, a tender and delicious tension rising in me.

But my Rose soon grew impatient with me. She gently guided me backward and began to stroke me, rubbing and licking and pinning me to the watery bed. Up and down, gradually increasing the pressure. I arched my neck, moaning lightly, and rolled my hips into the soft solidity of her body. I felt warm. Wet. _Oh, yes._

_Give me what I need._

I drew in a shaky breath as the first waves of pleasure shuddered through me. I began to rock my hips faster against her, feeling her fingers stroke me up and down. My breathing grew rapid, destabilized by a mounting sense of urgency. I wanted, _oh_ , I wanted. _Please_. At this point the real Rose would have said she loved me, but when I’d tried that with my hologram, it was drained of meaning, and I’d burst into tears, feeling more alone than ever. Tonight my Rose said only that I was safe, asked only if it felt good. And _oh_ , it did, the way she stroked me, gently holding the back of my neck. She felt everywhere at once: the pressure of her hips, her precise fingers, her soft open mouth. It overwhelmed my nerves and felt — _oh_ , so good. I began to teeter on the edge of short-circuiting and I braced myself. But she urged me forward with gentle encouragement, her fingers continuing to knead as she said, that’s it, let it come to you. My body felt light, _oh_ , rising to meet her insistent pulling, pulling...

And then. Release. Sweet, bright, aching, gasping release. My toes curled, my body rocked and spasmed and shook, my voice wailing, my muscles wringing the pleasure from each nerve, from my clenching core. I clutched at her, shuddering, crying out, _Oh, Rose, yes_. 

Tonight, she whispered against my forehead, was all about me. _Sleep now, my darling Pearl_ , she said, kissing my gem. I let go, dropping all the remaining tension from my body, collapsing against her pillowy chest.

I was so drained that I almost didn’t register how cold my hologram’s arms felt wrapped around my body. Somewhere in the back of my mind it occurred to me, as it had many times before, that I was only hurting myself. That this wallowing flew in the face of everything I'd just promised to work on. Normally at this point, my indulgence made me sick with guilt and an aching, empty sadness, but tonight, the day’s exhaustion and the constant trickle of the fountain lulled me straight to sleep. 

—

Amethyst poked her head up through the central fountain. Another one of Pearl’s swords had fallen into her room; she hadn’t meant to spy. But when she saw the sharp blue hologram, a crude projection of who Rose had really been, she froze. Pearl was moaning and writhing under it, twisting her body as if she was reaching for something. When she finally came — well, Amethyst hadn’t known that Pearl was even capable of release like that. She flopped like a noodle, letting go of the millennia of tension she carried in that thin, angular body of hers, if only just for a moment. 

As the hologram receded and she watched Pearl relax into sleep, looking small and soft and almost... peaceful, as Amethyst had never seen her, and she realized the depth of her pain from its temporary absence. The truth hit her that Pearl would be mortified if she realized that Amethyst had been there at all. She could return the sword later.


End file.
